On his blog, The Bottom Feeder, Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel has focused his musings on what might cause the demise of a small independent game company. The two part article includes a variety of doom and gloom scenarios ranging from bad economic times to the possibility of a complete collapse of the internet.

The Destruction of the Internet -
The Internet was not made to be this mega-global network used by everybody. As time goes on, more flaws show. When e-mail was new and exciting, we didn't see what a horrible mess spam would make of it. Maybe a series of viruses or other new hacker trickery might make the network unusable. And then I am screwed.

Likelihood - Very, very low. It's hard to imagine a hacker trick that could defeat everyone else on the Net. But it is very helpful to remember that the health of my business is inextricably tied with that of the Internet.

The Macintosh Dies -
People have been predicting this for years and years. And the Mac is half my business. If it goes away, I probably will too.

Likelihood - Once high. Now low. Whatever I might think of Steve Jobs, his revitalization of the Macintosh brand has been crazy good for my business.

Piracy Becomes So Trivially Easy and the Recession Becomes So Intense That Hardly Anybody Buys Games Anymore -
Pretty self-explanatory.

Likelihood - Again, this has already happened. Recent estimates put the PC piracy rate at around 80-90%. Even I am not cynical enough to believe that the percentage of honest people around here will drop below ten percent. And yet, that tiny minority of virtuous people is enough to keep me in business.
Once, I actually worried about something like this would happen. And then it did. And yet, business is strong. I think this shows that even nightmare scenarios can be surprisingly survivable. In other words, predict and prepare, but don't panic.

The Bottom Feeder: Guess What Is Going To Kill Me 1

The Bottom Feeder: Guess What Is Going To Kill Me 2

Spiderweb Software

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